Start Your Engines!

We’re all fueled up, got fresh rubber on the car and the adrenaline is pumping. It’s time for drivers to start our engines and race to success as we celebrate CX Day on this special episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their success. You can find out more at Walkerinfo.com.

Hello everyone. I’m Steve Walker and Happy CX Day. I’m host of The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. It’s never been a better time to be a CX leader and this podcast explores topics and themes to help leaders like you deliver amazing experiences for your customers. Today we’re going to do something a little different to celebrate CX Day that time each year when professionals around the world celebrate customer experience. This year’s theme is “CX Drives Success” and the Customer Experience Professionals Association, or CXPA, is hosting a number of events around the globe throughout the day. You can go to cxday.org to learn more about how to participate. But for this podcast, we thought we’d do something a little different. As many listeners know, Walker is headquartered here in Indianapolis, the world’s center of speed and also known as the Circle City. We are famed for our love of motorsports, and I just happen to have a panel of CX experts in the room with me and we’re going to have some fun with our CX Day theme. How is CX like motor racing? My guests today are no strangers to the podcast. All of them have been former guests on the show. Sean Clayton is our senior Vice president of Advisory and Managed Services. Jack Walker is a vice president and team lead, and Sheila March is a vice president. Sheila, Sean, Jack, welcome back to The CX Leader Podcast and happy CX Day.

Happy CX day to you, Steve and everyone listening. Glad to be back.

All right. Happy to be back. Thanks for having us on the podcast, Steve.

Yeah, thanks for having us on. Happy CX Day.

All right. Well, I got to tell you, I love this idea for a podcast and I think it was your idea, Sheila, but I’m going to talk about racing and you guys are going to have to relate that to CX because if there’s anything I love as much as CX, it’s auto racing. But before we get started, let’s just start a little bit with our racing credentials. So, Jack, you want to kick us off?

Sure. Well, I think I have a lot of thanks to you for my love of racing. Just going to tracks and races since I was little. So been to 27 Indianapolis 500s. Definitely, primarily an Indy car fan, but like NASCAR, Formula One and plenty of other forms of racing. So in addition to being a CX expert, very interested in the topic of racing, so happy to be here.

And Sean, I know you’re a no no novice when it comes to motorsport. What’s what’s your credentials?

Well, I can’t hold a candle to Jack’s number of Indy 500 attended, but I did used to work at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, so I spent some time there. And at the time that I was working there, it was the inaugural Formula One race in the United States at Indianapolis. So I am an F1 fan by heart. I like other forms of racing too. But for me, Formula One is where it’s at.

Well, and I got to tell you that Sean’s all decked out in his Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton gear here. And and in case you can’t tell, Sean’s from the UK originally, so I think you are a fan of Lewis, aren’t you?

Number 44 all the way.

All right. And, Sheila, this was your idea. What what are your racing credentials?

Well, Steve, I have been to one Indianapolis 500, so I am riding the coattails of my idea to be on this podcast today, but looking forward to sharing our thoughts on racing and how that relates to CX. And I have done a little bit of studying, so I sort of know a little bit about racing, but I can’t say nearly as much as anyone else in this room.

Did you watch any of the races yesterday?

I did not.

Okay. So Sean, did you watch any of the races yesterday?

I did watch the Formula One race in Singapore, yes.

Yeah. And Jack, did you watch?

I watched Formula One and NASCAR yesterday.

All right. I did, too. And Sheila, between the two of us, we’ve been to 50 Indy 500s.

Nice. All right. That’s a nice, good number. I like it.

Next year, 2023 will be my 50th. So.

Wow.

All right, let’s get this thing rolling. Let’s try to talk about how racing relates to CX. You know, we’ve already started talking about the different forms of racing, and probably the three most popular in the US are NASCAR, IndyCar and Formula One. Formula One is probably by far the most popular form of motorsports globally. But let’s just kind of talk a little bit about how are different forms of racing, sort of like CX. Anybody got a take on that?

Sure, yeah. I can start out. I think between those three, obviously I’m not biased, but Formula One is more of a premium global brand. And so I think when it relates to customer experience expectations of Formula One fans are a little bit different maybe than they are for NASCAR and IndyCar. And I think when we talk about CX is all about meeting or hopefully exceeding your customer expectations. And I look at Formula One and look at the budgets involved, the amount of glamor involved, the travel to all these different locations around the world. It’s like a global CX premium brand.

Yeah, and I think to play on that, you know, for Formula One, you see these teams with with massive differences in budget and ultimately the performance on track. Whereas in a NASCAR or an Indy car, the cars are very much more similar in terms of their performance. And so I think you could kind of equate that to maybe more of a certain industries that are highly competitive where it’s hard to differentiate yourselves. So you have to be searching for those little things that are going to help create better performance for your business or your car to ultimately win in the marketplace or the race.

How about you, Sheila? You got to take on this one.

Yeah, I think Jack took mine with understanding, but I think it really does go back to what Sean was saying, like understanding your customers expectations. If you look across those forms of racing, if you compare F1 to NASCAR, to IndyCar, the the consumer base, the customer base seems to me like it’s incredibly different and they are going to have different expectations of the drivers and the cars. And then when they actually attend a race, that’s going to look different across the board too. And I think it’s having an understanding of what those expectations are and then tailoring that experience to that customer base as well.

Yeah. So you got to know what business you’re in. You got to know kind of who your customer footprint or who you’re trying to reach out to and who you’re trying to serve. So yeah, I like that.

That’s good. And I think it’s knowing your identity like NASCAR is not going to be Formula One. So their business model is going to look different than a Formula One. So I think it’s important to know your unique business and what you are and what makes you unique and different and how you best serve customers and then just go with it.

Yeah, actually that’s kind of a neat segmentation if you think about it. We segmented the, the fans of motorsports and therefore each each of them has kind of their own unique niche within the overall sport and they probably appeal in some ways to the same people, but also they appeal to different people. So awesome. All right. Well, you know, one of the things that I think that in your study, Sheila, you discovered that racing is actually a team sport.

That is. Yes, I did. Well, I think I knew that a little bit beforehand. But yes, it definitely is a team sport. It’s not just the driver. That’s just what everyone sees a lot of times.

Yeah, Well, what are what are some of the other aspects of a of a race team that that are important for success.

So with my little knowledge I will say there’s always the crew right? That’s the other very visible piece of the team. So they’re the ones out there changing the tires, or the rubber, depending on which race you’re watching. So that’s very important. If one of them doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do or the timing’s off or something goes wrong, then that can impact the outcome of the race. Right? But then I think that there’s there’s people that you don’t see as well. There’s a lot of strategy that goes into racing. So there are, you know, analysts and things like that that are looking at the weather conditions, the conditions of the track and the car. So there’s a lot behind the scenes that maybe the regular, regular race fan might not think about or typically see that really goes into the outcome of the race.

I am so impressed with your knowledge of racing already. Thank you. You really did some homework. I can tell.

How about you, Sean? Now you’re a Formula One man, and you know, there’s there’s no higher level of technology and innovation in any form of motorsports. But talk a little bit about the teamwork within Formula One and and how intense that is and how important it is for success.

Yeah, I mean, the budgets are extremely large, so the teams I mean, just the number of people employed by a Formula One team, it’s in the hundreds and then not just at the racetrack, they’re back in the factory at the company’s head office as well. And it’s been honestly too long since Lewis Hamilton has won a race and been able to say this. But normally when he wins a race, he’ll say, first of all, thanks to everybody back in the factory. And I think it’s kind of like with our clients, we talk about the stuff they have that a customer facing. They’re on the front line and then there’s everybody else that is helping the staff that a customer facing. And I think that’s the parallel, at least with Formula One racing. There’s all those people back in the factory that aren’t necessarily getting all of the the kudos, but they are the ones supporting the equivalent of the customer facing team, which is the mechanics and the crew that are actually out at the track.

All right, Jack, So let’s take this to the CX application. So is the CX leader, is are they the driver?

Yeah, I think you could argue in different ways here, but probably I like to think of the driver as the CX leader. Ultimately, they’re the one that that is steering the ship in terms of within the business or within the race where the organization is going with their CX program. Whereas maybe like a crew chief who is involved with helping set strategy and and checking in with the the driver and trying to win the race that maybe you could equate to an executive sponsor for a CX program. You know, they’re going to be involved a little bit and they can help provide good strategic guidance and strategy. But ultimately it’s the CX leader that has to take the organization forward to to win the race from a CX perspective.

And who do we think the pit crew might be? Would that be the CX staff either assigned or maybe even the cross-functional leaders of the CX effort? Sheila?

I think so, definitely. I mean, every organization is different. Some organizations have a very large budget and may have a large CX team. So there’s your crew. Others may have more of a advocacy group where they have CX champs throughout the organization and that’s their crew. So it looks different depending on how your organization is set up.

Now, one thing I think that probably the average fan doesn’t appreciate is is how data driven motorsports are at all levels. Sean, I know you actually did a thing on this several years back, so talk a little bit about the analytics of of racing.

Yeah. And then Sheila mentioned just the data coming in for things like macro factors like the weather forecast. But the cars themselves really across all of the series are full of sensors, just like a regular car that you might drive out of a dealer parking lot would be. And all of that data is being fed back to the team in real time. And they’re running analysis that putting it through their programs, building out models of what to do, exactly, given a specific scenario: when to pit stop, what types of tires to change to. It’s pretty incredible. And I think you kind of see it if you’re watching a race, at least if you’re watching Formula One or IndyCar, when you look at the steering wheel of the driver and the cockpit view and that thing is just full of lights and displays that are telling the driver exactly what that telemetry is coming through from all of those different data feeds. So, yeah, a lot of data driven things being being decided during a race.

All right. Well, I think I can even make this connection with data and CX. But, you know, we got all this data coming back to inform not only the driver, the crew chief, the pit crew, but even the guys back in the shop. Right. And they they do debriefs and post-mortems on their race and they look at it at every detail. So, Jack, how do you kind of think about that in terms of CX?

I just even thought like the apps nowadays for these various series, you can, as a fan, have the telemetry data to understand how much they’re braking, how much they’re using the throttle, how fast they’re going. Other measurement points, I guess, on the car to get real time data. And I think you kind of can equate that to CX in terms of the democratization of customer feedback data across the organization and putting that in everyone’s hands to be able to have that knowledge to become a smarter racer or a leader in the driver perspective, but also from a fan perspective, more knowledgeable in how you be a good fan and knowledgeable fan for when you want to talk to your buddies or whoever. So I think you can kind of use that the same way for anybody within a company organization to use that CX data ultimately to do their job better, to become more knowledgeable.

Yeah, it really does come down to the CX pro building a system of integrity where the facts set is is validated and is used by all the parts of the organization to try to achieve the success and the business outcomes. All right. So we have different forms of racing like NASCAR, Formula One and Indy Car, but then we also race on different types of tracks. We haven’t really talked about that kind of variable. Sheila, can you kind of tell us what are the kind of the various forms of of tracks that that cars race on?

Really? Steve So, yeah.

I want to I want to see if you’ve really been studying up on racing like you said you would.

So there’s the circles or the ovals. That’s what we have at Indy. I’m familiar with that. The Oval track.

Ovals.

Yeah, right. Yeah. And I know that there are tracks that are not ovals, so they’re you were just saying them.

Road course…

Road courses. Yes. As well. So they’re different and I but I can relate those to CX. Yeah. Because I know they’re different. So you could relate those tracks to different journeys. Right. That, that your customers are taking or that that you are providing to your clients. But you’re going to have to talk to Jack and Sean about more detail of the types of tracks.

Well, I like where you’re going with that because, you know, there are different journeys even within within an individual company. But I might even take it a little further. There’s really two types of road courses. There’s road road courses where you actually have some run off and then there’s street circuits. Like probably the most famous one is Monaco, where there is no runoff. It’s it’s all concrete. There’s there’s no shoulders. Think about like driving through a construction zone. There’s there’s there’s no place to bail out. But how would the different types of circuits sort of apply to a CX leader analogy here?

Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I think one thing that is true of all circuits is that you actually complete a lap or a circle. Maybe squiggly, maybe more circular or oval, but then you have to complete another one. And I think with with customer experience, we believe that it never ends, right? You have a life cycle with your with your customer, that journey. And it doesn’t end. It loops back around. It’s like an infinity loop. So I think with different types of circuits, with a street circuit, you have very little room for error. So when we think about customer experience, there are certain industries and certain journeys that if you make a mistake and you don’t meet those customer expectations, the consequences are fairly severe, especially journeys that are maybe more emotionally charged in terms of the end user or customer than than more rational types of decisions. So you think about road circuits, there’s lots of run off, so you have some latitude. Maybe you can experiment a little bit more in your customer experience. But going back to ovals also, basically no room for error when you’re hurtling around at 200 miles an hour. I guess the only other thing I would say is that with ovals, you’re driving around them, you only have to turn one direction. So maybe those are a little bit easier to navigate than having to turn left and right.

But on ovals, there’s a lot more traffic.

There is, but you are only turning one direction and you’re typically not using your gearshift or or brake.

What say you, Jack? What say you as an oval track guy?

Well, you know, one thing we talked about earlier was an oval you could maybe equate to like a relational survey where it you know, you kind of do the same thing over and over again. And it’s important that you do that, you know, once a year to or twice a year to check in on where your customers are at, whereas a street or a road course, it’s more of those transactional journey based kind of programs where there’s a lot of moving parts to try to kind of understand the journey a customer takes with with a company. It’s not just kind of a blanketed check in customer health kind of standpoint that are relational is.

Well, let’s talk a little bit about the competition, because I think that’s another aspect that we haven’t talked about, which is very relevant for this analogy we’re building. But, you know, we’ve talked a lot about kind of our team and what we can control, but there’s also the aspect of other things going on on the track, and we might equate that to other things going on in the marketplace. So yeah, you’ve got to run one lap and then you got to run another lap and another lap. But also the competition is is changing. Sheila, how does that kind of hit you in terms of the way you think about CX and and what’s going on in the marketplace in terms of what the CX Pro needs to look at.

Yeah, I think it’s important and I’ll I can actually relate this back to racing. I was thinking about this.

You’re doing a wonderful job. You know, you really sold yourself short coming in here. I got to tell you, I’m impressed.

Well, you know, try to beat those expectations, set them low, and then you can go over. But no. So if you if you think of your CX leader as racecar driver. Right. So you have that strategy maybe going into a race and then stuff happens. Right? So maybe there’s an accident on on the track, but there’s more traffic on the oval circuits and I’m probably more familiar with Indy car, but you have to pivot and maybe change your plan. And I think that that happens quite a bit in customer experience. Right. So something can change with the business strategy. Maybe a new executive comes in and sets completely different goals than before and you have to pivot where you’re going. You know, there was the pandemic, right? So a lot of organizations had to pivot where they were going and how they listen to their customers and how they met their customers where they were. So I think that having the ability to think on your feet and be able to to pivot when something happens that maybe wasn’t part of your initial plan is is really important when you’re driving a CX program.

A very, very good analogy. And one thing I think that you’ve mentioned there is technology. Technology changes and it can can radically change kind of the basis of your current business. And that’s very true in racing – technology changes. In fact, if I could be so bold as to kind of say something about Formula One, you know, it is so innovative that usually only two or three teams in any given season are relatively competitive. But those teams aren’t totally constant either. You know, it might be two teams this year, next year it might be three, and then two or three years from now, it could be two teams that weren’t even competitive five years prior. So how does technology play in F1 and how does that relate to our job as CX leader, Sean?

Yeah, I mean, you have to have a base level of technology to be successful in any form of racing and Formula One that base level is probably a lot higher than it is in other forms of racing just because of the nature of the the series and the teams and the and the budgets involved. But you can’t under invest in technology to be successful in Formula One. I think that’s exactly the same as the CX program. Technology is is an enabler of a successful CX program and without it, you’re probably going to have inefficiencies. You’re not going to be able to react as quickly or be proactive about what you need to do to meet your exceed customer expectations. So it’s a very important component. It’s not the only component. Obviously things like culture and customer experience competencies are also foundational, and I think that’s the same in Formula One. You could have the best technology, but if the equipment is unreliable or the drivers are not able to keep pace with other competitors, then it probably won’t be successful. But it’s certainly foundational.

And so, yeah, just to kind of go on top, even with another analogy for what Sheila was just talking about, you know, a common occurrence in an auto race would be various strategies based on what’s happening in the race. So one example would be you have to save tires sometimes or save fuel in order to make it to the end to give you your best shot at winning. And I think from a CX standpoint, you know, CX leaders, we oftentimes want to keep the the the pedal to the floor, kind of always going 100%, trying to move things forward with within our organizations. But I think we have to realize that sometimes we’ve got to ease up a little bit, go into fuel saving mode a bit from a change management perspective to keep have the organization keep it moving along with various communications and governance and other elements of successful program that are crucial in order to make it to the finish line and be successful.

Yeah, very well put. You know, one aspect we haven’t talked about yet and is is relevant in racing is that there are rules and there’s sort of a governing part of the of the race. You know, there’s officials and there’s rules that you have to abide by. There’s there’s flags, there’s yellow flags and there’s red flags. And then, you know, you are limited in terms of how many tires you get and how much fuel you get. What’s the analogy there to CX?

Yes, I can I can throw a few ideas in there. I think we it’s one of the areas that I think get shortchanged frequently in discussions of customer experience because it’s not doesn’t sound like it’s a very glamorous type of topic, but it’s governance and it’s absolutely critical for CX teams to have a governance model, to have a charter for everyone to know what their role is and what they’re doing. Like I said, it often gets overlooked because it’s not as glamorous as talking about things like technology and skill sets and dashboards and what have you. As it relates to racing. I think of it as kind of governance within a within a team. Everybody needs to know what their role is for that team to function successfully. And like we’ve talked about earlier, a racing team is cross functional. You have engineers, you have mechanics, you have people that just focus on the wind tunnel, you have the driver, you have the pit crew. And when you see a Formula One or an Indy car pit stop in real time, it’s over in a blink of the eye, literally two or 3 seconds. When you slow it down, you see a big cross-functional team. Everyone has their role. Someone’s just holding the sign to tell the driver where to stop. Somebody just responsible for changing the left right tire. But it works seamlessly because they have governance in that team and they know what their charter is.

Yeah, nicely, nicely put. Yeah. Teamwork is a huge part of this deal and we’ve talked about that and I think that that that is a common theme that we talk about on the podcast is even though you’re the leader, you’re really orchestrating the entire organization to be customer focused. So.

Sheila, it looks like you wanted to jump into this conversation here. Talk about something.

Yeah, I thought it would be interesting to talk about drafting. So, you guys know I’ve been doing a little bit of homework, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on how drafting relates to CX.

Drafting. I hadn’t even thought about that. You are one impressive race fan, I got to tell you that.

Thank you, Steve.

Jack, you’re our oval guy. Let’s let’s talk a little bit about drafting although they draft down the straightaways in F1, too.

Yeah well for novice race fans, drafting is a concept of a car behind another car coming up and getting within its slipstream. And ultimately it’s able to go faster because the car in front of it is breaking the wind and doing all the work for it, which allows it to make it easier to pass and go faster. So I think from a CX perspective, drafting we could equate to utilizing external resources to your benefit of your program. So even The CX Leader Podcast and all of the episodes we’ve had, hopefully you find as a way that is helping you draft for your CX program in your company.

That’s awesome. Hey, if anybody wants to experience drafting, you can do it on the highway. I don’t recommend this, but if you’re behind a semi truck and you get up close enough to them, you can actually save a lot of fuel and you can use less throttle to keep up with the traffic. So if you ever want that experience. But you know, even the even bike racers draft, you know if you ever watched Tour de France they take turns on the point because the person you know the car in front is breaking the air and using more energy than those or if you want to think about geese, if you ever see geese fly in formation, that’s a form of drafting too. So there. Thank you for bringing up drafting Sheila. We learned a lot about drafting.

We did. I really appreciate that, Jack. That was great.

All right, CX Leader Podcast guests. We’ve reached that part of the show where we do take home value. And from this incredible discussion we’ve had relating motor sport to CX leadership, we’re going to ask each of you to give your best take home tip. This is something that a CX pro could take back to the office and apply immediately. They’re going to get three take home values today. But Jack Walker, why don’t you lead us off with what your best tip is for our listeners today?

Sure. So my take home value today is actually not racing related. It is the power of analogies. And while the majority of this episode you might have found a little cheesy or stretching for what we’ve tried to do here, I think it is effective ultimately in making your point within your organization. So especially if you’re a leader, if you can equate your program back to your business model since you’re not a racing team, but in the same way we’ve done a little bit today, it helps make the point as to why every single one of these people or things or resources is critical ultimately to be successful. So think about how you might be able to utilize that for your own company.

That was very, very good. Take home value.

Sean I’m going straight back to the metaphor treasure box. So yeah, I think that, you know, just from again, being a Lewis Hamilton fan, what I would say is you just can’t be complacent with your CX program and your CX initiatives. So the Formula One rule book was changed radically about a year ago, and some of the teams that had previously been dominant were left a little bit behind in terms of adapting and reacting to those changes. And I think that’s what we see with with customer experience. Often you can get quite complacent and in a comfort zone with your CX program and before you know it, you can be disrupted. So really being aware of that and we talked about knowing where your competitors are on the race track, that’s definitely important. But equally important is not losing sight of your own race. So that would be my take home value.

Nice. And our new racing expert, but always been a CX expert. Sheila March, your take home value.

Yeah. So I am going to go with the roadmap. I’m going to build on what Jack and Sean also said, but I think it’s important for a CX pro to take a step back and to, like Jack was saying, understand the business, build the roadmap, have a plan and a focus, but then also be able to pivot when needed, whether it’s the business needs or the industry or technology, and make that roadmap kind of fluid. Right? But always come back to that base strategy and plan that you had going into your program.

Well. Thank you. CX really is like a race. It’s a long race, and it’s one where it’s worthwhile for us to put our best foot forward and keep trying to work at. But it’s something that we can’t totally control. There is some luck involved, but if you do the right things over a long period of time, you’re going to be more successful in your CX program. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast and having a lot of fun with this. Sean Clayton is our Senior VP of Advisory and Managed Services. Jack Walker is a vice president and team lead and Sheila March is a vice president here, client service at Walker. All of them are Walker experts. And if anybody would like to continue the conversation, can you just let us know how they could get a hold of you? Jack?

Yeah. Jack Walker on LinkedIn or jwalker@walkerinfo.com.

Sean?

Yep. I’m also on LinkedIn and email address is sclayton@walkerinfo.com.

And Sheila.

And I am also on LinkedIn and my email is smarch@walkerinfo.com.

Hey, thanks a lot everybody, for, for being a guest on the podcast. It was a lot of fun. Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

Yep. Thanks, Steve.

Hey, and if you want to talk about anything else you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your business customer experience, feel free to email me at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Remember to give The CX Leader Podcast a rating through your podcast service and give us a review. Your feedback will help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listener. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show and find all our previous episodes, podcast series and contact information so you can let us know how we’re doing. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We’re an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening. And remember, it’s a great time to be a CX leader so rev up those engines and make sure that you have a happy CX Day everyone. We’ll see you again next time.